At Risk
by NightOwl525
Summary: Sequel to Taking A Risk. Marshall and Mary think they have worked most of the kinks out of their relationship. What happened when Mary is faced with something she swore she could never do? Will Marshall be able to help her through it?
1. Chapter 1

_**Hey guys, I have been tossing around the idea of a sequel since half way through the original. I've been writing it while writing Taking a Risk. I hope you all enjoy it! You will notice a common theme to most of my stories. I love writing heroics!**_

"Mary!" a voice frustrated voice called.

The pale green curtain, separating her from the rest of the patients in the hospital, was ripped back revealing a short bald man. His arms were folded across his chest, his foot tapping. He was not happy to be there, that much was evident.

"I swear, I am so tired of visiting you two in the hospital. You with a dislocated shoulder and your partner with a broken nose and possible concussion." Stan had visited them in the hospital more than half a dozen times in the last two years. It was getting old quick. They really needed to have refresher course on safety protocols, on and off duty.

"Sorry Stan, but in my defense the other guy started it." She grumbled.

"The other guy? Mary, the other guy was Dershowitz, and he is in a bay down the hall with a fractured wrist, stitches, and bruised ribs! What the hell were you thinking?" Stan bellowed. Since Marshalls shooting the partners had become more fearless than ever before.

"Oh come on Stan, there was a bet to consider, and I was winning!" She argued. Mary, Marshall, and Bobby had become pretty close friends since Marshall's stay in the hospital. Dershowitz had bet her she couldn't win in a dirt bike race. Anyone who knew Mary would know she would take that challenge personally and Mary didn't often lose.

"You were racing dirt bikes through the desert when you hit a rock and blew a tire. Consequently you wiped out in front of Bobby and Marshall, injuring all three of you." Since Mary first joined his office Stan felt like father, boss, and principle all rolled into one. It had only gotten worse in the two years since Mary and Marshall's injuries. It had gotten to the point that most of the regular hospital staff knew Mary and Marshall by name.

"Are they okay?" She asked. The last she saw Bobby was bleeding from a gash on his arm and Marshall was holding his head. As much as she wanted to win the bet she didn't want Bobby or Marshall hurt in the process. Now she would have to wait until they all healed for a rematch.

"They'll be fine. Doctors should be releasing them now." Stan confirmed. He looked down at his watch, it was only 11:30 in the morning. If he could get everyone to their respective homes he may still be able to make his lunch date. He decided to send her a quick text to let her know he might be a tad bit late.

"Good, lets go them." Mary put her shoes back on and grabbed her gun and badge. She was ready to get Marshall and go home.

Mary gathered her injured partner and loaded him in the car. He was still a little light headed from the wreck but he didn't have a concussion. He did have a broken nose, but the doctors set it and told him it should heal up in no time. Bobby got eight stitches in his left forearm and a brace for the hair line fracture in his wrist. There wasn't much they could do for his bruised ribs, but tell him to take it easy.

Stan drove and Bobby called shotgun. Mary looked over at Marshall who sat next to her. He had his hand discretely on her knee. He always found some little way to touch her and Mary didn't really mind. She was no longer so opposed to physical contact, at least from Marshall anyway. She actually found herself eagerly anticipating his next touch. It was amazing what an emotional connection could do for a relationship. That connection was always something that was lacking in her relationships. She often focused solely on the physical aspects of the relationship and nothing else. Anyone who made the mistake of trying to get her to open up or have a serious conversation was almost immediately kicked to the curb.

In the last two years they had worked out the kinks in their relationship. They fell relatively easily into a pattern. For the first six months Mary and Marshall went the traditional dating route at Marshall's insistence. Marshall moved into Mary's house when his apartment building was condemned because of irreparable damage from termites. Things were going great. Mary had reluctantly spent her first holiday with Marshall's parents and some extended family, later that same year.

It was a thanksgiving Mary wasn't inclined to forget. Charlotte was beyond excited to have Mary there for the holidays. She took her into the kitchen and taught her some recipes that Marshall thought his mother would never reveal. When Abigail had asked his mother about a stuffing recipe one year, Charlotte promptly told her it was a family secret. Mary wasn't as hesitant to the Texas cottage for Christmas, and thanksgiving the following year.

"Alright you two, here we are." Stan pulled up to Mary's house and parked. Stan had only recently learned of Marshall's apartment building being condemned. Marshall explained to him only six months prior(almost six months after his apartment was condemned)that he was crashing in Mary's guest room. Stan hadn't put it together yet. He knew their relationship changed in the last few years but he never mentioned the change of address paperwork Marshall filed or the fact that the two arrived to work at the same time now. Stan didn't ask, and they didn't tell.

"Thanks Stan. Sorry about messing up your day off." Marshall held the door for Mary and apologized to their boss. Stan didn't often take days off, and they almost never coincided with Eleanor's, Mary's, and Marshall's.

"Yea well, I'm just glad you're all okay. Get some rest, you two are supposed to be transferring a witness tonight. Charlie and the new guy aren't authorized to transfer witnesses such a far distance yet. I'll see you all at seven pm sharp tonight." As Stan drove off Mary groaned. This was sure to be a long transfer with a whiny twenty year old witness.

 _ **TBC**_

 ** _Alright, here we go again guys. This one is a work in progress, I have the main story line plotted out in my head but very little has actually been written yet. Feel free to leave comments or suggestions!_**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Alright, Chapter two! I tried to make this one a bit longer than the last one. :)_**

* * *

"How's the shoulder?" Marshall looked over at Mary as they got into the car. She had been rolling her shoulder and grimacing when it moved.

"I'm fine," he gave her a look that told her he didn't believe her. Mary rolled her eyes, "Really, I'm fine Doofus. You on the other hand, you look like you've gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson." Marshall had bruises across his nose and under his eyes and stitches above his left ear.

Marshall smirked at her attempt to take the attention off herself. Marshall humored her and changed the subject. If something was seriously wrong he knew she would tell him.

"Thanksgiving is next month. Mom called yesterday, she wants to know if we are planning on spending the holiday at their place." He pulled out onto the street and headed for the Sunshine Building where Stan already their witness.

Mary looked at him as he drove. Going to the Mann house for a holiday wasn't anything close to her favorite thing to do. She didn't really care to be in the middle of so many people. Mann holidays were a family affair, and boy did they have _a lot_ of family. In all reality she would much rather just spend Thanksgiving(or Christmas) with just Marshall and have a nice, quiet dinner. Marshall though, Marshall loved these big family gatherings. He loved the chaos the holidays brought, and Mary knew that. She decided she could just suck it up twice a year so he could spend time with his family since they spent the rest of the year with those who she considered her family(Brandi, Stan, and yes, even Eleanor).

"Tell your mom we wouldn't miss it for the world." Marshall rewarded her with a huge grin.

"Great, she will be positively jubilant!"

"Really? Can't you just say _'_ happy' like any other _normal_ person?"

Marshall shrugged, "Eh, I don't think 'happy' is a strong enough word. Trust me; she will be much more than just _happy._ " He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her left temple.

Marshall parked Mary's beat up old car in front of the Sunshine Building. He unbuckled and turned to her. "Are you ready to get this transfer on the road?"

"Just jubilant..." She muttered as she slammed the door behind her.

* * *

"Daniel, we are twenty miles outside Tennessee. If you ask if we're almost there again I'm going to tie you to the roof rack!" Mary turned around to yell at their witness. Her shoulder was hurting and her temper was wearing thin. She turned back around and looked at Marshall. He had been driving for the last several hours. The bruises under his eyes were only getting darker, luckily though the swelling had gone down.

Marshall rolled his eyes from the driver's seat. Daniel was probably their neediest witness. Daniel was one to call three or four times a week to tell Mary or Marshall about a car that followed him half way home or that someone smiled at him at the grocery store. In the past year Daniel had gone through four jobs. He quit each one saying they just weren't the right jobs for him.

"Alright, alright!" Daniel put his hands up in surrender. The silence only lasted a second. There was never more than a few seconds of silence.

"Can we at least stop to get something to eat?"

"NO!" Marshall finally yelled. His patience had been pushed to its limits. Marshall was all for a good conversation but Daniel hadn't stopped rambling or asking questions in six hours. Mary and Marshall hadn't even been able to hold a conversation with each other with him in the back seat.

All the sudden and without warning Marshall crossed three lanes of interstate traffic and took the upcoming exit. This immediately caught Mary's attention and sent her into observation mode. Sure enough a black four door Cadillac narrowly missed causing two accidents to make the exit Marshall took. Mary sure as hell wasn't going to dismiss this car, not this time.

"Marshall, take this first left." Mary instructed and turned to Daniel. He was going to need to become invisible.

"Get down on the floor!" Mary ordered. It was at that moment the back window shattered. That was it, things were going from bad to worse.

"Shit!" Marshall ducked and realized this was gonna get messy.

"Daniel, buckle up. We're gonna have to out run them Mare," Marshall grabbed his phone and dialed the Marshals office out of Knoxville. They needed to know that the transport had been compromised and was going to require more security.

"Yea," Mary agreed. These guys seemed to know their way around this area. Every turn they made the guys following were able to keep up, they never seemed to get lost. The only option was going to be speed. If they could get enough distance they may be able to make a turn before the guys following saw them.

"Okay Daniel, have you told anyone you were moving?" Mary turned in her seat to question him.

"No! I swear I haven't told anyone!" He told her with an innocent look on his face.

"Are you sure you didn't mention it to anyone?" Mary pushed. Daniel was paranoid but she also knew he loved to talk. He would tell anyone his life story without a second thought if they engaged him in conversation.

"Only my buddy who lives in Knoxville, but he wouldn't tell anyone!" Daniel insisted. Mary let out a frustrated growl.

"You imbecile! Don't you know the whole reason you can't contact anyone from your past is because the people who want you dead are watching them?!" Mary scolded. She was ready to throttle man in the back seat. She and Marshall had gone over the MOU with him three times. She wasn't sure if Daniel was just stupid or he just didn't care.

"Mary!" Marshall's phone fell, forgotten, from his hand as he yelled.

Mary turned back in time to see the black Cadillac blow through a red light. He was headed right for them and there was nothing Marshall could do to avoid it. Mary wasn't buckled in anymore, and the SUV was coming on her side. Marshall had just enough time to throw his arm across the car and cross it over Mary's chest.

Seconds later were met with screeching tires and colliding metal. The Cadillac hit the front passenger door and flipped the armored, government vehicle onto its side.

Marshall came to first. Everything seemed like it was in slow motion. His head was pounding and he felt something warm running down his face. The sound a car horn brought him back into the moment.

That's when he saw feet getting closer. When they rounded the front of the car Marshall saw the weapons in their hands. He fumbled with the strap on his holster but managed to pull the gun from his hip. When the men came into his line of fire, he took them out. Two center mass shots to both men.

He looked over and saw Mary crumpled over. The only thing keeping her from falling atop of him was the console between the seats.

"Mare," he checked to see she was breathing before moving on to check the witness. Protocol mandated they protect the witness at all costs.

"Daniel," He called out. Marshall wasn't able to get out yet. Getting out without moving Mary was gonna require that he go through the shattered windshield.

"I'm okay, I think." Daniel answered. Luckily Daniel had listened when Marshall told him to buckle up.

Sirens pierced the air. By the shear sound of it half the county was on the way to the scene. "Daniel, don't leave this vehicle. Got it?" Marshall ordered.

"Got it, is Mary okay?" He asked.

"I don't know yet." Marshall sighed.

"Hey Mare, wake up Mare." Marshall gently patted her cheek. The whole time his heart was threatening to leap out of his mouth. When Mary groaned he sighed a little relieved. She started to move so Marshall stopped her.

"Don't move, Mare. Does anything hurt?" He was thoroughly checking her out while awaiting her answer. After this morning's incident with the dirt bikes he was worried her previous injuries would have been made worse.

"Oh my god," she groaned. After taking a minute to inventory herself and be sure everything was in working order she looked to her Partner. "I'm fine Doofus, how about you and Daniel?" She asked.

"Daniel is fine; I can feel a gash on my head but nothing serious. Come on; let's get you out of here."

Marshall kicked the windshield out and went around helping Daniel out. He just got him out when police arrived on scene.

* * *

"No Stan, we're fine. Marshals just picked up Daniel twenty minutes ago." Marshall paced the waiting room of local Emergency Room. A couple of Marshals from the Memphis office had flown in. It only took them forty five minutes to arrive. The transfer had been re assigned and Daniel was no longer going to Knoxville. Where he was headed now was anyone's guess.

"Yes Stan, I'm sure. They aren't even keeping Mary overnight; she's signing her discharge paperwork right now." He reassured his boss. Mary was diagnosed with a mild concussion and a few minor cuts from the broken windshield, but had no other serious injuries. Marshall had a minor cut on his forehead that a nurse closed using thin, cloth, bandages.

"Alright, I will call you when we get back into town. Bye Stan," Marshall hung up the phone and went in search of Mary. She was just walking out of her room when Marshall approached.

"Let's get out of here, Marshall." Mary looped her good arm with his and leaned against him for support.

 ** _TBC_**


	3. Chapter 3

**_Hey Guys! I just wanted to let everyone know that I have changed the name of the Twelve year old girl. I realized as I was working on the next chapter that I had pulled the wrong name from the a different story. It probably wouldnt have had made a difference to you guys as readers but I would forget and type in the correct name and confuse everybody._**

 ** _The Girls name is Julianna, not Madelyn. Sorry for any confusion guys!_**

If anyone asked, Mary would have told them that trip from West Memphis to Albuquerque was the longest car ride she had ever had. It was just after three in the morning when they stumbled in the door. Mary kicked off her shoes and made a beeline for her bed. She stripped off her dirty clothes and all but melted into the sheets.

Marshall decided he couldn't sleep without a shower first so quietly made his way past his sleeping partner to the bathroom.

Mary was awoken just ten minutes later by two noises; she door to the bathroom creaking loudly open and a cell phone ringing. She recognized it as the ring tone Marshall had set for Stan. Mary snatched the phone from the bedside table and chucked it at the half naked man in the doorway. Fumbling, Marshall caught flying device and retreated into the bathroom.

Then Mary's phone rang. By the sound of the Addams Family theme music it was Eleanor. With a loud groan she rolled over to answer the call.

"I swear to all that is holy Eleanor, if someone isn't dead there's going to be hell to pay..." she was cut off by Eleanor.

"Mary, the Wilson house is on fire!" There was a hint of jab in her voice but it was mostly overshadowed by frustration. She was in no mood for Mary's games today.

Mary sat straight up in bed. The Wilson's were her witnesses. They were still pretty new to WITSEC. The family had only come into the program about two years ago. Anne Marie was currently out of work so Mary and Marshall had been spending alot of time helping her out. So far they weren't having much luck, Anne Marie was a high school dropout who had almost no working experience at all.

"What?! When? Are there any injuries?" Mary demanded. She was out of bed and rummaging through her drawers as she spoke. She grabbed a pair of Marshall's pants and a shirt and threw them at him as he stood in the door to the bathroom.

"Just got word a few minutes ago. I don't know the status of anyone. I can't get anyone to give me any information."

"Thanks Eleanor," She hung up the phone and turned to Marshall while she holstered her gun. He was already dressed and grabbing the keys from the nightstand.

Mary and Marshall bolted from the house. They were already on the phone with Bobby and local fire chief. They knew Stan would be in the office by the time they got there and would already be running a threat assessment even though they didn't know if the fire was an arson or not yet.

* * *

As they pulled up in front of the house all, they could see was a wall of red and orange. Mary's heart plummeted as she stood frozen in horror. The Wilson's were a family of four. Anne Marie Wilson and her husband Devon had two kids, a twelve-year-old girl named Julianna and an eighteen-month old boy named Gabriel.

Marshall grabbed the first uniform who walked by.

"Inspector Mann of the U.S. Marshal's. Do you know if the family got out?" He demanded as he flashed is badge.

"The fire department got the kids out but unfortunately the fire started in the parent's bedroom. They were already gone, nothing they could do." Marshall stood there for a minute before turning to relay what he just heard to Mary. He grabbed her by the arm, pulling her out of her frozen state, and started to pull her in the direction of the ambulance.

"What are we going to do?" Mary asked. Those two kids were orphans now. What exactly were they supposed to do with young, orphaned witnesses? They couldn't just drop them in foster care; that would be a breach of security. Julianna and her mother were the two who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Julianna and her mother testified.

"Mary! Marshall!" They turned at the sound of a young voice. The brunette preteen was sitting in the back of an ambulance with her little brother in her lap. Julianna was trying to hold an oxygen mask up to his face but the toddler wasn't having any of it.

"Julianna!" They hurried over to the scared young girl. She had never been so happy to see anyone in her life.

"Are you okay?" Mary asked. The girl shook her head no. The little boy in her lap was crying and trying to push the mask away from his face. When he noticed Mary his crying changed to whimpering. He reached his arms out to her, his little fists grasping at the space between them.

"Mary!" he sniffled.

Mary looked at Marshall who just smiled at her. Since Gabriel turned one and he could walk, he sought Mary out whenever she was in the house. Even though she spent minimal time with him Gabriel always started to cry when Mary and Marshall were getting ready to leave. One time he crawled up on the couch next to her and fell asleep next to her with his head resting against her arm.

Marshall nodded and Mary took a deep breath. She hooked her hands under his arms and lifted the little boy into her arms. He wrapped his arms around her neck and laid his head on her shoulder. She noticed his footed pajamas were covered in black soot, as was the rest of him.

She let out her breath as the little boy settled against her. In all reality she knew how to care for kids. She practically raised Brandi. Problem was, she saw just how screwed up she and her sister were. She never wanted to screw up a kid like that. Her own pregnancy was never supposed to happen. She knew she couldn't raise the baby so she placed it with a nice couple who could.

Marshall watched Mary. The way she held Gabriel and comforted him proved she really did have a maternal side. He knew she did, she just never wanted to acknowledge it, and he wasn't going to force her to do so.

A middle aged man with white hair, and dark, tired, eyes walked up to the group. Mary immediately bristled; a protective hand came to rest on Gabriel's back and she stepped closer to Julianna. The way this man walked and the clipboard he carried, she knew who he what he was and she wasn't sure if she liked it.

Marshall instantly reacted to Mary's perception of a threat. He moved on instinct to stand in front of Mary and the children.

"US Marshal Marshall Mann, can I help you?"

"My name is Jared Swill, I'm a social worker with The Department of Children and Families. Can I speak with you for a moment?" the man motioned to the side.

Mary's reaction made sense now. Mary never cared for social workers. She knew foster care was often much better than leaving the child with family but it didn't stop her from thinking most the social workers she met were callus and insensitive.

Marshall left Mary with Julianna and Gabriel while stepped away to talk to the social worker.

"So what's going on?" Marshall asked.

"I'm here to take custody of Julianna and Gabriel Wilson." the man stated calmly. It was easy to see that the man had been doing his job for a long time and he knew what he was doing.

Marshall chuckled dangerously and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Yah, that isn't going to happen. They are federally protected witnesses. They will remain in the protective custody of my partner and I until we can prove whether or not the fire was an attempt on their lives." Marshall explained in his no-nonsense Federal Agent voice.

"So you will be their guardian?" he asked.

Marshall nodded, "Yes, their parents didn't make it so they will be in the temporary protective custody of my partner and I."

TBC


End file.
